


unmasked

by cirrus (themorninglark)



Series: Sportsfest 2018 [17]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, Reincarnation, Sportsfest 2018, Youkai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 15:53:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15318939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themorninglark/pseuds/cirrus
Summary: Oikawa glances sideways at Kenji. “There are a lot of cracks in your mask. I think I’d remember that.”"If you will forgive me for being personal— I do not like your face."





	unmasked

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Sportsfest 2018 Bonus Round 2: Quotes | [originally posted here](https://sportsfest.dreamwidth.org/8539.html?thread=1042779#cmt1042779)

When the first bell rings out, Kenji’s leaning against the far wall of the temple. There’s a cup of rice wine in his hands and a vine at his shoulder, twining up and over the weathered brick. It’s secluded enough to be safe here, he thinks, until a familiar footstep rounds the knoll, and Kenji doesn’t even have time to brace himself before Oikawa Tooru appears.

“Too noisy down there for you, huh?”

Kenji starts to bite back a loud sigh, then thinks better of it and lets it out anyway.

“I’m never going to be rid of you, am I?” he asks.

Oikawa’s eyebrows shoot up. He comes to stand next to Kenji, hands in his pockets, a pale white scarf round his neck. His sneakers are damp with melting snow. Against the dancing red lights of the temple, he cuts a luminous figure.

“That’s a cute greeting. Have we met?”

Kenji’s hand tightens round his paper cup. “Too many times.”

Oikawa glances sideways at Kenji. “There are a lot of cracks in your mask. I think I’d remember that.”

“There are a lot of cracks because you put them all there,” Kenji snaps.

He raises the cup to his mouth and knocks back a big sip. The warmth bubbles up from inside, and he drops the cup, lets the rest of the rice wine spill to the ground, and reaches to grab Oikawa’s wrist. Oikawa doesn’t resist.

“The worst thing about you humans,” Kenji mutters, “is that you have no self-preservation.”

“What about you? You’re pretty reckless for a _youkai_ ,” Oikawa points out, and Kenji grits his teeth.

Later, next time, for there always seems to be a _next time_ , a _next life_ , he’ll chalk it up to the wine, never mind that wine has no effect on him and he’s been a wall guardian long enough to know better. There’s a chunk already falling away from one corner of his mask, and his eye, exposed to the moonlight, meets Oikawa’s searching gaze directly for the first time in so many human lifetimes.

“Did you _call_ me here?” asks Oikawa.

“I don’t have that sort of power,” says Kenji. “You just always come to the wall.”

Oikawa smiles. “So you knew I’d come.”

Kenji swallows his answer along with the last dregs of wine in the back of his throat. As he raises Oikawa’s hand to his face, lets Oikawa’s fingertips graze the cold, hard cracks that will break him apart, he allows himself a victory smirk.

“You once said that you didn’t like my face,” he says.

“Did I? Is that why you started wearing a mask?”

“As if I’d wear a mask just for you,” Kenji murmurs, and shuts his eyes as Oikawa’s palm presses close.

His mask does not disintegrate slowly, for this is not Oikawa’s style; it shatters into a whirlwind of fragments as the bells rise to a crescendo, and all the pieces are sharp, and the last thing Kenji remembers hearing is Oikawa’s voice, soft at his ear. _You’re right. I don’t like your face at all._ His lips are a fierce kiss against Kenji’s bare cheek, and then the wall comes crumbling down and Kenji wonders if this is the last straw, if he’ll finally be stripped of everything and come back as a human.


End file.
